Adherents.com: Religious Groups in Literature

34,420 citations from literature (mostly science fiction and fantasy) referring to real churches, religious groups, tribes, etc. [This database is for literary research only. It is not intended as a source of information about religion.]

Catholic, continued...

Group

Where

Year

Source

Quote/Notes

Catholic

California: Los Angeles

1996

Powers, Tim. Expiration Date. New York: Tor (1996); pg. 132.

"Preparation for El Dia de los Muertos, the day of the dead. On the wall over it was hung a heart-shaped frame, its interior occupied by a gold-colored crucifix and a small clock face. " [Other Catholic refs., not in DB.]

Catholic

California: Los Angeles

1996

Powers, Tim. Expiration Date. New York: Tor (1996); pg. 188.

Pg. 188: "I've reacted against the whole establishment I was raised in, there--I'm not Catholic, I don't drink, and I don't seem to be attracted to men. Oh--and not to women at all! "; Pg. 189: "We could both deal with our ghosts from behind the mask, like Catholics confessing through the anonymizing screen in a confessional. As he trudged up the sidewalk beside the brick wall of Miceli's, he wondered if Elizalde felt differently about the Catholic Church now. Or about drinking. " [More, pg. 242, 305.]

"At the Fourth Street onramp to the southbound Hollywood Freeway stood the Church of St. Herman of Alaska. Actually, it was a run-down slum hotel that a priest frienf of mine had converted into a mission. He usually kep the front door unlocked, so I let myself in.

Father Joey Moreno leaned forward in one of the church's two pews. His thick right hand grasped a bottle of Chianti that he snorted down lovingly. A pink stain colored most of his white collar.

'Hey Joey. Too much sacrament.' " [Other refs. to this priest character, and to Catholicism in book, not in DB.]

"One quarter, I see him come to class in a priest's getup. He'd quit the Trots to join the Russian Orthodox Church. Changed his major to religious studies... Joey's folks were Mexican Catholic, so you know how they greeted him at home..' "

"'...our guests today include... Monsignor Carlos Latina of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.' Geraldo turned to the man wearing a black cassock. 'Monsignor--where do you think the souls are today of those clergy members who molested boys in church-run orphanages?' "

Catholic

California: Los Angeles

2025

Stephenson, Neal. Snow Crash. New York: Bantam (1992); pg. 175.

"...Hollywood Hills. But they stop short of the Hills, and end up on the roof of a hospital. Part of the Mercy chain, which technically makes this Vatican airspace. So far, this has Juanita written all over it.

[Year estimated.] "'Say no more,' Butler cut her off, switched on the type-pad. 'It took me six weeks to go through marrow transfusions. Been here seven years. I like it here [on the moon Titan]. Last job I had was Earthside, with the L. A. Parochial School District Administration.' "

Catholic

California: Oakland

1971

Dick, Philip K. Valis. New York: Bantam (1981); pg. 19.

Pg. 19: "Three malinformed people disagreeing with one another. We also had David our Roman Catholic friend and the girl who had been dying of cancer, Sherri... He would be talking about whipping her out from under his coat on judgment day, along with the cat. " [More about David, pg. 19-20, etc.]; Pg. 25: "For Fat, finding God... became, ultimately, a bummer... Who deals God. Fat knew that the churches couldn't help, although he did consult with one of David's priests. It didn't work. Nothing worked. "

Catholic

California: Oakland

1971

Dick, Philip K. Valis. New York: Bantam (1981); pg. 19.

"Being a Catholic, David always traced everything wrong back to man's free will. This used to annoy even me. I once asked him if Sherri getting cancer consisted of an instance of free will, knowing as I did that David kept up with all the latest news in the field of psychology and would make the mistake of claiming that Sherri had subconsciously wanted to get cancer and so had shut down her immune system, a view floating around in advanced psychological circles at that time. Sure enough, David fell for it and said so.

'Then why did she get well?' I asked. 'Did she subconsciously want to get well?'

David looked perplexed. If he consigned her illness to her own mind he was stuck with having to consign her remission to mundane and not supernatural causes. God had nothing to do with it.

'What C. S. Lewis would say,' David began, which at once angered Fat, who was present. It maddened him when David turned to C. S. Lewis to bolster his straight-down-the-pipe orthodoxy. "

"Reverend Strong [a Protestant] says he is worrying intensely about the theological issues raised in the doctrinal negotiations with the Roman Catholics that have been going on for a year at the Vatican. He doesn't want to be bothered with practical problems concerning community work; he has to think about abstract theology, it takes up all his mental energy. This is what he tells Lucy over their late lunch. " [More Catholic refs., pg. 223.]

Catholic

California: Orange County

2065

Robinson, Kim Stanley. Pacific Edge. New York: Tor (1990); pg. 11.

"One day in sixth grade she had told him she was Roman Catholic, and he had told her that there were Greek Catholics too. She had denied it disdainfully, and so they had gone to look it up in the encyclopedia... "

"...brown cap of the Mark Hopkins Hotel housing the restaurant-bar Top of the Mark. Grace Cathedral atop Nob Hill was masked by the high rises there, but the modernistic cylinder of St. Mary's Cathedral stood out plainly on newly named Cathedral Hill. " [More about this, pg. 84, 146.]

"Someone--Mia never discovered who--had asked a Catholic priest to say a few words. The young priest was very eager, and meant well. He was very exalted on entheogens, so filled with fiery inspiration that he was scarcely able to speak. When the priest finished his transcendant rant, he formally blessed the gel. The tiny crows drifted from the site in twos and threes. "

Catholic

California: San Francisco

2095

Sterling, Bruce. Holy Fire. New York: Doubleday (1988); pg. 68.

"...We can throw medical terms at the soul, but we can't box it up. We simply can't give people their identity the way we might give an injection, in the end, people have to find their own souls.'

'Are you religious, Doctor?'

'Yes, I am, actually. I'm a Catholic lay brother.'

'Really. How interesting.'

'I wouldn't advise any use of entheogens under your medical circumstances, Mia. If you want to see your Savior face-to-face, then He will wait for you. You'll have plenty of time.' Dr. Rosenfield smiled. " [Other refs. to this character, without reference to his religion by name.]

Pg. 5: "Dr. Sanders turned to Father Balthus, who was standing a few feet away on his left... The priest was smoking steadily... During the three-day journey from Libreville he had kept to himself, evidently distracted by some private matter, and only began to talk to his table companion when he learned of Dr. Sanders's post at the Fort Isabelle leper hospital. "; Pg. 6: "Even so, at first Dr. Sanders had suspected that Father Balthus might not be a priest at all. The self-immersed eyes and pale neurasthenic hands bore all the signatures of the imposter, perhaps an expelled novice still hoping to find some kind of salvation within a borrowed soutane. However, Father Balthus was entirely genuine, whatever that term meant and whatever its limits. The first officer, the steward and several of the passengers recognized him, complimented him on his return and generally seemed to accept his isolated manner. " [Many other refs. to this important character, not in DB.]

"'I don't know what the good Father's motives are, but I'm certain his bishop wouldn't approve of them.'

'You think he may have--changed sides?' Louise asked.

Laughing at this, Sanders replied: 'That may be putting it too strongly, but i suspect that, professionally speaking, he was trying to confirm his doubts rather than allay them. That cross in the market drove him into a frenzy--he was literally trying to shake it to death.' "

"At first Sanders thought that Balthus regarded his survival as an example of the Almighty's intervention, and made some token expression of gratitude. At this Balthus smiled ambiguously. Why he had returned to the church Sanders could only guess. By now it was surrounded on all sides by the crystal trellises, as if overtopped by the mouth of an immense glacier.

From the door of the chancel Sanders could see the outbuildings of the native school and dormitory that Max Clair had described, presumably the home of the tribe of lepers abandoned by their priest. Sanders mentioned his meeting with the lepers, but Balthus seemed uninterested in his former parishioners or their present fate. Even Sanders's presence barely impinged upon his isolation. Preoccupied with himself, he sat for hours at the organ or wandered among the empty pews. "

"...Sanders woke... and found Balthus alone, celebrating the Eucharist. Lying on the pew pulled up to the altar rail, Sanders watched him without moving, but the priest stopped and walked away, stripping off his vestments.

Over breakfast he confided: 'You probably wonder what I was doing, but it seemed a convenient moment to test the validity of the sacrament.'

He gestured at the prismatic colors pouring through the stained glass windows. The original scriptural scenes had been transformed into paintings of bewildering abstract beauty, in which the dismembered fragments of the faces of Joseph and Jesus, Mary and the disciples floated on the liquid ultramarine of the refracted sky.

'It may sound heretical to say so, but the body of Christ is with us everywhere here... in each prism and rainbow in the ten thousand faces of the sun... So you see, I fear that the Church, like its symbol'--here he pointed to the cross--'may have outlived its function.' "

"The overlapping arcs hung in the air like the votive windows of a city of cathedrals. Everywhere around them Sanders could see countless smaller birds, butterflies and insects, joining their cruciform haloes to the coronation of the forest.

Father Balthus took Sanders's arm. 'In this forest we see the final celebration of the Eucharist of Christ's body. Here everything is transfigured and illuminated, joined together in the last marriage of space and time.' "

Catholic

Canada

1931

Anderson, Poul. The Boat of a Million Years. New York: Tor (1989); pg. 254.

[A fundamentalist/Evangelical Christian is preaching.] "'Men who lie with men, women who lie with women, any who lie with beats--all shall die by stones... Papists and Saracens and infidels and Jews and all who bow down to idolatrous images--the Angels of the Lord say unto you: Repent for the hour is at hand! Repent or feel the swift swords of the Lord's chosen instruments.' "

"'Pry? Of course not. But I'll tell you anyway. She was the daughter of one of the embassy staff in London. Very beautiful. I was twenty-four, she was nineteen. But her people were Catholics from Comayagua, where they're strict, and naturally they didn't want her marrying a Methodist. So they shipped her home. I finished my studies, saving like mad to buy a passage there, thinking that if I could convince them I was serious . . . Hell, I'd have converted if I'd had to!' "

Catholic

Central America

2025

Stephenson, Neal. Snow Crash. New York: Bantam (1992); pg. 180.

"Usually, all you see at a Reverend Wayne's are old beaters with wacky Spanish expressions nail-polished on the rear bumpers--the rides of CentroAmerican evangelicals who have come up north to get deceen jobs and escape the relentlessly Catholic style of their homelands. "

"However, a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church had recently put in an appearance--not a local person, but an American, dispatched by the Vatican to interfere with CP activities. Why must they meddle? Bulkowsky asked himself...

To his Colombian advisor he said, 'Give me the psychological profile on this Cardinal Harms.'

'Yes, Comrade General,' Ms. Reiz passed him the file on the American troublemaker.

Studying the file, Bulkowsky said, 'His head is up to his ass. He's a spinner of theology. The Vatican picked the wrong person.' We will tie Harms into knots, he said to himself, pleased.

'Sir,' Ms. Reiz said, 'Cardinal Harms is said to have charisma. He attracts crowds wherever he goes.'

'He will attract a lead pipe to the head,' Bulkowsky said, 'if he shows up in Colombia.'

---

As a distinguished guest of an afternoon TV talkshow, the Roman Catholic Cardinal Fulton Statler Harms had lapsed into his usual sententious prose... " [More.]

"'Ah, you see into my very soul, Sacchetti. But there is, after all, a point in my nonsense and sophistry. Make your Catholic Gaud the warden of this prison-universe, and you have exactly Aquinas' argument, nonsensical, sophistical--that it is only in submitting to His will that we can be free. Whereas in fact, as Lucifer well knew, as I know, as you've had intimations, one is only made free by thumbing one's nose at Him...' " [The narrator/main character is Catholic. Many refs. to Catholic doctrines, history, rituals, etc., but very few refs. to Catholicism by name.]

"'The wages of sin is death, but death is likewise the wages of virtue. So you'll need a better bugaboo than that. Hell, perhaps? Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it! Dante has no frights for the inmates of Buchenwald. Why didn't your sainted Pope Pius protest the Nazi's ovens? Not through prudence or cowardice, but form an instinct of corporation loyalty. Pius sensed that the deathcamps were the nearest approximation that mortal man has yet made to Almighty's plan. God is Eichmann writ large.'

Pg. 123: "Assiduous is not happy about the work that duty requires of him. H suspects it may not be altogether right. Like Hans in my play, Assiduous is a good Catholic. "; Pg. 125: "Despite a security as tight as the Vatican's, rumors had begun to circulate there... "; Pg. 159: "I doubt the Vatican will survive to the end of the century, though one should never underestimate the power of ignorance. Oh, not the Vatican's ignorance, for heaven's sake! They've always known which way the deck was stacked. "; Pg. 168: "Religions are already taking off in all directions... Catholicism should be able to maintain at least its clergy in line, thanks to celibacy. "

Catholic

Colorado

1978

King, Stephen. The Stand. Garden City, NY: Doubleday (1978); pg. 529.

"...biked out to north Boulder... Boulder's 'old' residents. Stan Nogotny said it was as if the Catholics, Baptist, and Seventh-day Adventists had gotten together with the Democrats and the Moonies to create a religious-political Disneyland.

The front lawn of the home was a weird tableau of statues. There were a dozen Virgin Marys... "

"According to his mother's wishes there would be a 'visitation' this night where Denver friends could pay their respects before the casket was flown back to Des Moines the next day for the funeral Mass at St. Mary's and final interment at the small city cemetery... "; Pg. 153: "...Louis was reminded of lines of celebrants at his First Communion . . . and of animals at a trough. " [Some other refs., not in DB.]

Catholic

Colorado

1989

Simmons, Dan. Phases of Gravity. New York: Bantam (1989); pg. 98.

"Baedecker's father had been a lapsed member of the Dutch Reformed Church, his mother an agnostic, if anything. Joan had been a Catholic, so for years, while Scott was growing up, Baedecker had attended Mass each Sunday. For the past decade he had been . . . what had he been? "

Catholic

Colorado

2002

Ing, Dean. Single Combat. New York: Tor (1983); pg. 39.

"The bishop of the New Denver Diocese had perished, with other prominent Catholics, in the celler collapse of a Colorado monastery... "

Catholic

Colorado

2049

Knight, Damon. A For Anything. New York: Tor (1990; 1959); pg. 47.

"They passed the Rev. Dr. Hamper, squatting on a hillock, hands clasped below his ecclesiastical knees, head bent, smiling around his pipe as he listened to the visiting Americo-Catholic priest from Fontainebleau. It was the general feeling at Buckhill that Hamper was a mediocre chaplain, his predecessor the Rev. Dr. Morningside being remembered as a model of succinct eloquence; but he was the best natural-born Episcopalian minister Buckhill could get--so many were being duped by the big Eastern families that naturals were growing very scarce. " [More about Rev. Dr. Hamper, pg. 66.]

Catholic

Connecticut

1960

King, Stephen. Hearts in Atlantis. New York: Scribner (1999); pg. 64.

"'...One of the St. Gabe's boys told me. Willie, his name is.' " [The Catholic parochial school St. Gabe's is mentioned elsewhere in book, not all refs. in DB, esp. if not explicitly mentioned as 'Catholic'.]; Pg. 416: "His wifeis the former Sharon Anne Donahue, St. Gabriel the Steadfast Secondary Parochial School, Class of 1964... "

"He never feels more Catholic than when he arrives on this spot. He was a St. Gabe's boy, after all; wore the cross, wore the surplice and took his turn as altar-boy, knelt in the booth, ate the hated haddock on Friday. He is in many ways still a St. Gabe's boy, all three versions of him have that in common. "

Catholic

Connecticut

1988

Byrne, John L. Fearbook. New York: Warner (1988); pg. 120.

"'I think the decision has already been made.' Ed's voice was slurred Has he been drinking? Does the Pope sh-- in the forest?' "

Catholic

Connecticut

1988

Byrne, John L. Fearbook. New York: Warner (1988); pg. 125.

"'...And, anyway, suicide is strange to begin with. I mean, Doc must've been pushing eighty. If he was fed up with life, he could've just sat around and waited it out. You know he was very Catholic.'

'So?'

'So Catholics say suicide is a straight ticket to hell. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. Just vroom!' "

Catholic

Connecticut

1988

Byrne, John L. Fearbook. New York: Warner (1988); pg. 9-10.

"'Is this town really as . . . well, as white Anglo-Saxon Protestant as it looks?'

'Oh, no,' Wheeler said. He swerved the Buick hard right around a slowing Winnebago. 'It's a pretty even mix. We have Catholics here, too.' "

Pg. 477: "...Willie Shearman from the old home town, one of the Catholic boys he and Bobby had been sort of scared of... "; Pg. 481: "'...it was at a St. Theresa of Avila Sodality dance. And I think, 'Holy..., those were the St. Gabe's girls.'...' "

"...found there a life-size gold statue of the Virgin... wore a crown in the shape of a crescent moon embracing a sun disk--much more like the Egyptian goddess Isis than the Christian Mary. "

Catholic

Cuba

1961

Simmons, Dan. The Crook Factory. New York: Avon Books (1999); pg. 3.

"They would probably turn Hemingway into some sort of pro-communist saint down here. I had seen it before in Catholic countries after a successful Marxist revolution. The faithful were kicked out of their churches, but they still needed their [expletive] santos. The socialist state always scrambled to provide them--busts of Marx, giant murals of Fidel, posters of Che Guevara. Hemingway as the patron saint of Havana... " [Many other refs. throughout novel, not in DB. The novel takes place primarily in Cuba of 1942. One of the main characters is a Catholic priest.]

"But in December of 1599, he receives a summons to debate a priest in public, a dangerous agon, because as a Jew he is supposed to lose. If he doesn't the opportunity of the Church for revenge will be multiple, swift, or slow-moving as they wish... " [Many other refs., not in DB., especially in the historical sections, in relation to Inquisition and persecution of Jews.]

"All seek an enemy. They are cut into sharp jagged factions, religious, economic, political, that bang against each other seeking a flaw. There are Roman Catholics, Hussites, Utraquists and lately some Lutherans, all enemies. "

"He saw a picture of Senora Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, which was indistinguishable from pictures he had seen of the Virgin Mary. Ortiz was a Roman Catholic. Everybody in Ecuador was a Roman Catholic. The von Kleists were all Roman Catholics. Even the cannibals in the Ecuadorian rain forests, the elusive Kanka-bonos, were Roman Classics. "

Catholic

Ecuador

1986

Vonnegut, Kurt. Galapagos. New York: Delacorte Press (1985); pg. 155.

"The girls had been at choir practice with Father Fitzgerald when everybody else in the tribe got sprayed. Some of the victims were still dying, so the old priest was going to stay with them. He wanted Ximenez, though, to take the girls someplace where somebody could look after them. "

"Amerie laid a hand on Kawai's shoulder as the old man turned toward the door. 'One favor, old friend.'

'Only name it, Amerie-san.'

The nun picked up the tiny pet wildcat. 'If you could give a home to Deej--'

He bowed gravely and took the little animal into his arms. 'I will keep her safe for you until you return to Hidden Springs. And you will. I have made a most formidable vow to the Martyrs of Nagasaki.'

'Crazy old Buddhist,' said the nun, pushing out the door. " [Amerie, a nun, is a significant character in the novel. Probably other refs. to Catholicism, although the term 'Catholic' isn't used.]

Catholic

Europe

865 C.E.

Harrison, Harry. The Hammer and the Cross. New York: Tor (1993)

[Book jacket] "What if... the Gods of Asgard challenged Christianity for the future of mankind?

865 A.D. Warring kings rule over the British Isles, but the Church rules over the kings. Powerful bishops and black-robed priests fill their cathedrals with gold, while threatening all who oppose them with damnation. But there are those who do not fear the priests, and they are the dreaded Vikings of Scandinavia.

Among these Northern invaders, those who follow the Way of the Gods of Asgard carry the Hammer of Thor as their emblem, and they are sworn to increase mankind's knowledge and strength by conquest and by craft. And as Viking warlords cast hungry eyes upon a weak and divided Britain, the Way collides with the Church, launching an all-out war between The Hammer and the Cross.

At the center of this... is Shef... driven by strange visions that seem to come from Odin himself. " [Catholic refs. throughout novel. Novel takes place before schism of 1054.]

Catholic

Europe

865 C.E.

Harrison, Harry. The Hammer and the Cross. New York: Tor (1993); pg. 307.

Pg. 307: "These are for Pope Nicholas. With this silver in his hand he may reflect that the Church in England cannot afford weakling archbishops any longer. "; Pg. 357: "'I myself was sent by my father to the last Pope, to good Pope Leo, when I was a child. The Pope made me a consul of Rome! Yet never have we had a ship or a man or a silver penny into England in exchange. But the day Church-land is threatened, Pope Nicholas can find an army.' "

"For one thing the bishop was startling young--and for good reason. After Alfred's dispossession of the Church, his excommunication by the Pope, the Crusade against him and his final declaration of non-communion with Rome, every senior cleric in his kingdom had left. From the Archbishops of York and Canterbury down to the least bishop and abbot. Alfred's response was to promote ten of the best remaining junior priests and tell them the Church in England was in their hands. Now one of them, Eanfrith Bishop of Winchester, six months before priest of a village no-one had heard of, came forward to ask his question.

'Lord King, we ask you to grant to us protection for Holy Church and due law and rightfulness for all those who are members of it.' " [Many other refs., not in DB.]

"Had then successively defeated the dreaded Ivar Ragnarsson of the Vikings, followed by Charles the Bald, Christian king of the Franks and deputy of the Pope himself. Now Alfred ruled unchallenged in England, through sharing his dominions with some heathen jarl whose name seemed almost a joke. But it was no joke that in retaliation for the Crusade sent against him by Pope Nicholas Alfred had declared the Church in England out of communion with the Catholic and Apostolic Church of Rome itself. Even less of one that he had stripped the Church in England of its lands and wealth, allowing Christ to be preached an served only by those who were prepared to earn their own livings by free offerings, or even--it was said--through supporting themselves by trade.

'For that defeat, and that apostasy, he must go,' repeated Gunther. He looked around the table. 'I say, Pope Nicholas must go to God. He is an old man, but not old enough. We must hasten his departure.' "

Catholic

Europe

875 C.E.

Harrison, Harry & John Holm. King and Emperor. New York: Tor (1996)

[Book jacket] "Set during an alternate Dark Ages that never was... gripping saga of Shef... First, he led a mighty Viking horde to victory over England... Now, in the powerful conclusion to Harry Harrison's acclaimed trilogy, Shef must face the reborn power of the Holy Roman Empire.

Ruled by the German knight Bruno, who wields the Holy Lance with which Jesus Christ was slain, Rome threatens Shef's fearsome Viking navy with a new invention of unparalleled destruction: Greek fire. Unable to defend his fleet against this awesome weapon, Shef travels to the East in search of new wisdom... and, ultimately, to the secret hiding place of the Holy Grail.

While the ancient Norse gods observe Shef from distant Asgard, visions and portents warn of the coming Ragnarok, the ultimate Twilight of the Gods. Faiths and empires clash in the final battle between The Hammer and The Cross, and not even the gods can predict the outcome. "

"In 1170 A.D., Peter Waldo, a wealthy merchant of Lyons, France, suffered a religious conversion, renounced his possessions, and wandered about the countryside in voluntary poverty. This obvious folly attracted both persecutions and followers, the latter called the 'poor men of Lyons.' In 1183 Pope Lucius III excommunicated the growing sect of 'Waldenses,' who appealed to the Scriptures instead of to papal authority, repudiated the taking of oaths, and condemned capital punishment. They never made the sign of the cross, as they refused to venerate the torture device on which Christ hung, or the painful and mocking crown of thorns. Nevertheless, the Waldenses prospered in Christian lands; many thousands of them settled in the Cottian Alps on the French-Italian border. Their dauntless missionaries covered southern France, southern Germany and northern Italy. But the Inquisition followed them, and they were savagely repressed over the course of several centuries. "

"It was impossible. Although he knew all about my problem in an academic kind of way, we didn't speak the same language; his counseling me about love and sex [circa 2458, when this character was born circa 1970] was like me telling a fourteenth-century serf how best to get along with his priest and landlord. "

"It was a shock to the Italians and a surprise to even his Spanish kinsmen when His Excellency Don Alonso y Borja, Archbishop of Valencia, Cardinal of Quattro Coronati, was elected Pope at the age of seventy-seven in the Conclave of 1455. Few disputed that the Cardinal's primary qualifications were his advanced age and obvious illness; the conclave had need for a caretaker pope and no one doubted that Borgia, as the Italians had civilized his rough Spanish name, would be just that.

As Pope Calixtus III, Borgia seemed to find renewed energy in his position and proceeded to consolidate Papal powers and to launch a new Crusade, the last as it turned out, against the Turks holding Constantinople. " [More, pg. 170, 175-177, etc.]

Catholic

Europe

1470 C.E.

Gentle, Mary. A Secret History. New York: Avon Books (1999); pg. 77.

Pg. 77: "'...Ruprecht was this Duke's father's candidate for the archbishopric...' "; Pg. 81: "Sweet Christ! Ash thought. I am in the middle of the camp of His Grace the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick III. The second most powerful ruler in Christendom. In open court. These are his most powerful subjects. They're all looking at me. "; Pg. 95: "The tent emptied of all but Ash, her surgeon, priest and page. "; Pg. 126: "...Ash stood in the great Green Cathedral at Cologne. " [Many other Catholic refs., not in DB, but not a main focus of the novel.]

Catholic

Europe

1470 C.E.

Gentle, Mary. A Secret History. New York: Avon Books (1999); pg. 374.

"The oddities of religion apparently practiced among the fifteenth century cohorts of Ash bear no resemblance to contemporary Christian practice. A more robust age--indeed, an age less in imminent need of divine protection than our own--can afford religious satires which we should, perhaps, deem blasphemous. These scurrilous representations (which occur only in the Angelotti manuscript) are Rabelaisian satire. They are no more intended to bread as fact than are descriptions of the Jewish race poisoning wells and abducting children. The whole matter is a satire against a papacy which was, by the 1470s, not at all beyond reproach; and shows the feelings which would, in the next century, explode into the Reformation. "

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